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Flower power: Five of the best Colorado gardens for mid-summer blooms

The "All That Jazz" Dahlia at the colorful Hudson Gardens & Events Center in Littleton. (Cyrus McCrimmon, The Denver Post)

If your summer has been nothing but go, go, go, August serves as the perfect excuse to stop and smell the flowers. Because, oh, what flowers there are now. Hibiscus blooms bigger than your head. Otherworldly ice plants hugging the ground. Daylilies seemingly plucked out of pricey Easter bouquets.

Five regional spots to see impressive blooms in these mid- and late-summer weeks:

Free. Between Broadway and Bannock Street, West Colfax and West 14th avenues.

If you work downtown, you've got no excuse: This one is right under your nose. Take a stroll through on a Monday, Wednesday or Friday when the food trucks aren't there and lose yourself in riotous or restrained color. See genteel beds of white and blue, and fiery orange cannas preparing to burst into bloom behind a blur of ornamental grass seedheads. There's a semicircular swath of giant hibiscus with massive blooms in fuchsia and blush and white. In all, there are 25,000 square feet of flowerbeds.

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Bring something to sit on, park your behind and be still in front of those hibiscus. Feel the noise in your head recede.

Don't miss: The two Grow Local Colorado beds, where tomatoes are starting to ripen (warning, serious tomato-envy danger. But don't pick them). You'll vow to plant more zinnias and marigolds in your vegetables. Even the lawn itself looks glorious thanks to recent rains.

South suburbanites have a gem in this garden wedged between busy Santa Fe Drive on the east and the South Platte River and Mary Carter Greenway on the west. Marketing specialist Ian Ross says visitors who come for their popular summer concert series often apologize for wandering in the gardens before the show. There's no need, he says; everybody's welcome when the gardens are open. Along the western edge of the gardens is a thriving patch of vegetables in raised beds, including a grape arbor; next to that lies a slumbering pumpkin patch bordered in buttercream and burgundy sunflowers. If you're into roses, herbs or dahlias, you'll find plenty to study here; cyclists with a birding bent can enter near the cafe, lock up and stroll to the songbird garden. Plant signage here is particularly good; you'll find yourself wanting to take notes.

First, walk the mile-long paved circuit of the lake, traipsing out to benches at the water's edge if you like, peeking over fences into the private gardens of homes that border the lake. Salve your fevered city brain with views of green trees and still water until it ceases to buzz. After that, you'll be better prepared to appreciate the small, xeric wonder that's been wrought with the park's southeast corner. Here, water-sipping plants show how gorgeous high-desert landscaping and rock gardens can be. There are cacti, ice plants, tiny blooming groundcovers, ruby-hipped roses and native oaks and conifers.

Don't miss: Sunrise is glorious here, for garden buffs and birdwatchers alike. There's a playground for smaller kids, as well.

Slice off a small piece of the rambling institution to sample. We suggest the O'Fallon Perennial Walk, a quick left turn once you're inside the York Street entrance. Living "walls" enclose this alley of blooming trees, shrubs and perennials. You'll meet yarrows, roses, salvias, irises, daylilies, penstemons. Though it looks wild and improvisational, it's carefully orchestrated to provide bloom in nearly all seasons, but high summer is the crescendo.

Don't miss: Got more time? Just west of the Perennial Walk, duck into the Ponderosa border in the quiet shade of giant cottonwoods. There are blooms here, too, but almost never crowds.

You're headed to New West Fest, and you've either seen or heard of the CSU Flower Trial Garden, that swath of color near the university's art museum that slows traffic on the south end of College Avenue every summer. Head west and a little south of Old Town to the Gardens on Spring Creek. A xeric "hell strip" designed by Lauren Springer shows how beautiful dry gardens can be; a "Garden of Eatin' " shows off fruit trees and vegetable beds, and that's just a start.

Don't miss: The Children's Garden, full of whimsical sculptures plus a pond and a pavilion with a green roof that cools its shaded interior. Spring Creek Trail, part of the city's trail network, meanders around the gardens' north side and connects to the Poudre Trail's eastern end, so if you're two-wheeling it, you're set.

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